‘Black Phone 2’ review: Ethan Hawke returns in Scott Derrickson’s rote horror sequel

Dir: Scott Derrickson. US. 2025. 114mins

Set in 1982, four years after the events of The Black Phone (2021), this horror sequel tells much the same story, with the same characters, but uproots the action from the original’s dingy Denver basement to a snowy Christian holiday camp in rural Colorado. The horizons may have expanded but the narrative stays tightly focused on the elements that worked so well in the first film; the unsettling menace of a child killer (now unstoppable even in death) and a beyond-the-grave plotline augmented with gooey special effects. It remains a superficial exercise in creepy fun, but – like so many horror sequels – retreading familiar ground proves an exercise in diminishing returns.

An exercise in diminishing returns

Black Phone 2 – which, like the original, premiered at Fantastic Fest – rolls out globally from October 15. Universal will be hoping that Halloween month audiences will respond as strongly as they did to the first (adapted from a short story by Joe Hill), which took $161m worldwide when it opened in the summer of 2022. Fans of the atmospheric original should turn out for the sequel, and the growing star power of Mason Thames – who has since appeared in the live action How To Train Your Dragon and the forthcoming Regretting You – may also help to pull in young adult audiences.

It’s four years after Finney Blake (Mason Thames) suffered a horrifying ordeal at the hands of serial killer The Grabber (Ethan Hawke), who locked him in a basement where he received ghostly phone calls from his previous victims. While he eventually killed The Grabber and escaped, 17-year-old Finn – as he now calls himself – is still living with the trauma of that experience, even though he pretends everything is fine. Here the screenplay, again by Derrickson and C Robert Cargill, dips a toe into interesting psychological territory, suggesting young men like Finn are not given the skills or support needed to deal with post-traumatic stress, which instead manifests in anger and violence.

That’s certainly true of his father Terrence (Jeremy Davies) who, in the first film, had been driven to drink and abusive behaviours by the apparent suicide of his wife. While he’s quit the alcohol and the beatings, he prefers to ignore Finn’s wreckless behaviour, leaving it up to sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) to provide the concern. Gwen’s prophetic dreams – a gift she inherited from her mother – proved crucial to finding her brother in the first film, and it’s these that are foregrounded here. Gwen’s nightmares eventually lead her, Finn and friend Ernesto (Miguel Mora), whose brother was killed by The Grabber, to an upstate Christian youth camp that her mother attended in 1957. The connection between past and present and, particularly, between Gwen and her mother, will prove a central theme.

When the trio arrive in a blizzard, they find that they are the only people there apart from camp leader Mando (Demian Bichir), his niece Mustang (Arianna Rivas) and caretakers Ken (Graham Abby) and pious, God-fearing Barbara (Maev Beaty). That makes for a chilling setting in more ways than one, production designer Patti Podesta contrasting the cozy wood of the chalets with the vast, empty dorms, the beauty of the landscape with its utter isolation. (A solitary phone booth set against the expanse of an iced-over lake makes for a striking image.) The hypnotic score from Atticus Derrickson (the director’s son), which is peppered with period songs (including perennial Pink Floyd favourite ‘Another Brick In The Wall’), also helps give a dreamlike sense of time and place.

The film moves into Nightmare On Elm Street territory as Gwen is beset by increasingly intense dreams, rendered in grainy home video-esque footage reminiscent of Derrickson’s Sinister (2010), also starring Hawke. In these, she sleep-wanders the camp, encounters a trio of long-dead boys (sporting various grotesque injuries) and, eventually, must do battle with The Grabber, who still retains his power in the afterlife. While Finn does his best to help, this is ultimately Gwen’s fight, and McGraw puts in a strong performance as this no-nonsense final girl. Hawke is, again, maniacally unhinged as The Grabber, although spends most of his time hidden behind a mask we see in various states of decay (effects work is suitably sticky throughout).

Throughout, Derrickson continues his preoccupation with good vs evil and trials of faith seen in previous works like The Exorcism Of Emily Rose (2005) and Deliver Us From Evil (2014) – although here it’s laid out in simple, black-and-white ideologies that don’t detract from the easy-to-swallow meat of this slasher-from-beyond-the-grave story. And while that proves diverting enough, it’s likely time for Derrickson to hang up this franchise for good.